Songs for the Weekend #1

Sit back, relax and take out your headphones. Or, if you’d prefer, put on your dancing shoes. It’s all about having a good time this weekend with a couple of good tunes to take you through the rest of the weekend.

Black Coffee – ‘Come With Me’ ft Mque

Pulsating bassline and delicate guitar riffs surely must be the secret ingredient to crafting an infectious track. Mque’s vocals lend the track a kind of dreaminess that blends in with the laid-back and upbeat rhythm the SA house veteran cooks up in his studio.

Final verdict: I’m going wherever he goes.

Stand Up – Timwork ft. Masterkraft, Wangeci and Jarel

With almost two decades of experience behind the scenes in the music industry as a producer, Timwork aka Tim Rimbui, finally decided to stand up and show us that he’s as much an artist as he is the guy working in the background. ‘Stand Up’ is a glittering dancehall mash-up that combines bright electro-pop elements, Wangeci’s easy-flow rap style and Jarel’s soulful voice in a track that is masterfully produced (pun, very much intended).

In Spoek Mathambo ‘township tech’ lives and breathes; and ‘The Mountain’ is another track that showcases Spoek’s ability to fuse together eclectic sounds into a groovy rhythm. Airy vocals and rolling snare drums layered over a fat bassline and dark chords make this track dynamic and compulsively re-playable.

Final verdict: I can’t stop humming.

Burnaboy – Duro Ni Be ft. Phyno

By now we all know that Burnaboy will never be defined by just one label. He likes to shift gears and switch things up a little; it’s a trait which perhaps makes him one of Africa’s most versatile artists. This time Burnaboy leans toward a hiphop/trap style in ‘Duro Ni Be’. A defiant Burnaboy delivers clean lines over pitch-shifted vocal samples that give this track a dark and haunted feel while Phyno teams up to add grit with his punchlines.

Final verdict: There is a goat in this video. I’m not sure what it’s doing.

Jaguar ft. Mafikizolo – Going Nowhere

If I had to make a list of East African artists who would’ve been a perfect match for a Mafikizolo collaboration, Jaguar would never feature anywhere in it. Before I listened to this track I was prepared to write it off as a desperate attempt at fusing together two things that didn’t mix very well. Oil and water. So my biggest surprise came when I actually liked the song. ‘Going Nowhere’ is a club anthem that demands to be played out loud in a small room, or blasted over large speakers across an open space. Jaguar manages to hold his own and keep pace with the faster tempo while Mafikizolo spice up the track with their upbeat Afro-house sound.

Final verdict: ‘Going Nowhere’ was the track that was playing at the party you weren’t invited to attend.

Tadele Roba ft. Ewolo Mazembo Serge – Tosishe

In a perfect world I wouldn’t have to google hard to find about about these artists.But even with the lack of information in a language I can process, good music in one language is still good music in any language, and this track winds up my weekend playlist with a bang. ‘Tosishe’ is a unique mix of Ethiopian traditional sounds and Congolese lingala music. The track revs up with punchy kicks and driving bass-line that leads up to the Ewolo’s verse before swinging back into the rhythm.